Government Reopens, Avoids Default

With just hours to go before a U.S. government default, Congress voted last night (October 16th) to raise the debt ceiling and to end the 16-day government shutdown. The Senate, whose leaders had negotiated the deal, passed it first on a bipartisan 81-18 vote, and the GOP-led House followed, passing it 285-144, although more Republicans voted against it than for it. President Obama quickly signed the legislation. The measure extends the government’s borrowing authority through February 7th, or perhaps a month longer, and funds the government through January 15th, raising the specter of potentially going through all this again in a couple of months. However, House and Senate negotiators will meet this fall to see if they can make progress on reaching on a broad deficit-reduction compromise, despite previous efforts having failed.

Now let’s hope that the Tea Party Republicans don’t hold the country hostage when this comes up again in February.